False Equivalence

January 6 Commission

It’s hard to see how the proposed January 6^th Commission could be more fair.  There would be ten members; five Democrats, five Republicans.  Both Democrats and Republicans would have subpoena power.  The Commission report would be issued by the end of this calendar year, 2021.  That’s important – whatever the report might say, it wouldn’t come out in the 2022 election season.  In our current “warp speed” news cycle, its impact would be over well before the battle for the Congress is truly joined.

And it’s hard to see how the proposed January 6^th Commission could be more relevant.  The National law enforcement and security agencies all agree:  the biggest terror threat to our nation isn’t Hamas, or Al Qaeda, or even Isis.  It’s White Supremacy and hyper-nationalism, the leaders of the January 6^th Insurrection.  It’s the only time our National Capitol has been taken by storm since the War of 1812.  It was an attempt to stop the fundamental Constitutional duty to choose the leader of the executive branch; an attempt that came perilously close to succeeding.  How can we not examine the causes, the failures, and the successes that led up to that day?

Black Lives Matter

To try to equate the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020 with the Insurrection of January 6^th isn’t even comparing “apples and oranges”.  It’s comparing apples and bowling balls.  Yes, there were original protests involved.  And yes, most of those protestors were there to “be heard”, not to commit violence. And there were portions of each of the protestors who were determined to commit violence.  But that’s where the “equivalencies” end.

The Black Lives Matters protests were essentially nothing new.  They were very much the same as the Civil Rights protests in the 1960’s, protests demanding that the Constitutional Right of “equal protection under the law” be enforced for all Americans.  In the 1960’s they were all about segregation, Jim Crow laws, and voting in the 1960’s.  This year they were about something even more fundamental:  “the law” is literally taking the lives of Black men.  

Like the protests of 1960’s, sometimes those protests got out of control and turned into riots.  Sometimes that was because there were folks in the protests who were more interested in violence and looting than “the cause”.  Sometimes it was because the authorities mishandled the protests, serving to instigate the protestors to violence (including here in Columbus).

But there is no question that Black Lives Matter protests were based in the facts of the George Floyd murder and others.  We all saw it with our own eyes, and a jury in Minneapolis has made it clear with their verdict.  And Black Lives Matter protests were overwhelmingly peaceful.   Over ninety-six percent of those protests had no property damage, and an even larger percentage were without injury (Harvard).

So that’s the apple.  Let’s compare it to the bowling ball.

Bowling Balls

The entire premise of the January 6^th Insurrection was false.  Every legitimate examination of the 2020 Presidential election showed that there was no “steal” to stop.  The Republican Attorney General agreed, as did the agencies responsible for overseeing the computer security of the voting process.  The “Big Lie” had its roots in the 2016 election, when the Republican candidate was “softening the ground” for his loss, by stating that the election “was rigged”.  He was as surprised by his win as the rest of us.  And we all watched with our own eyes the basic “lie” established, when Fox News’s Chris Wallace asked if he would accept the outcome of the election if he didn’t win – and he refused to say yes.

The entire 2020 Republican campaign for President was premised on the “fact” (lie) that they would win “on election day”, then have the “win” ripped away from them in the days to follow.  The reality that in a pandemic it would take several days to complete the vote count fit perfectly with their false narrative.  

Questions Need Answers

So we have one of the two national political parties, led by the (now former) President of the United States, establishing a lie about the fundamental process of elections.  Then that lie was used to incite Americans to come to the Capitol to interrupt the Constitutional process of confirming the election.  It is clear now that there was pre-planning involved for a violent attack in the building, and the Congress assembled within.  Who was involved in the planning, and the attack, and whether there was collusion between political and Government authorities and the planners are questions that the January 6^thCommission could answer. 

Instead we have one political party by and large still committed to the “big lie”.  That commitment has led their leaders to renege on the statements they made in the “heat” of the insurrection, when they bravely returned to the Capitol to fulfill their Constitutional obligations.  For most Republicans Members of Congress, and particularly those leaders, that courage has disappeared. They don’t want to know what happened on January 6th.

Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan had it right yesterday when he said:

“…We need two political parties in this country living in reality – and you ain’t one of them”.